1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a nozzle plate, a nozzle plate production method, a liquid discharge head, and an image forming apparatus.
2. Related Art
An inkjet recording apparatus is known as an image forming apparatus employing a liquid discharging recording method, in which a recording head formed of a liquid discharge head (droplet discharge head) to discharge droplets is employed.
Because the droplets are discharged from nozzles in the liquid discharge head, the shape and quality of the nozzles greatly affect the volume and speed of liquid discharge. In addition, it is known that the surface properties of the base material in which the nozzle holes are formed also greatly affects discharge. For example, if ink is deposited around the nozzle hole in the surface of the nozzle base, the liquid is discharged in an unintended direction, or the size of the droplets varies, or the liquid discharge speed becomes unstable.
It is known that providing a water-repellent film (or an ink-repellent film) on the surface of the discharge side of the nozzle plate improves evenness of the discharge side of the nozzle and stabilizes liquid discharge.
In this case, because the discharge side of the nozzle plate is wiped clean during maintenance, it is necessary to prevent the water-repellent film from being peeled off from the nozzle base due to the wiping or that the water-repellent film should have wiping-resistant property.
As examples of a conventional nozzle plate, JP-2003-341070-A discloses a nozzle plate which is formed such that the surface of the nozzle base is provided with a SiO2 film and a fluorinated water-repellent film is formed on the SiO2 film. JP-H07-25015-A discloses a nozzle plate including a chrome layer, SiO2 layer, and a siloxane-containing polyimide layer which are formed sequentially on the surface of the nozzle base and a fluorinated water-repellent film is formed on the siloxane-containing polyimide layer.
However, provision of the film or layer to improve adhesion between the water-repellent film to the surface of the nozzle base alone does not fully prevent the water-repellent film from being peeled off, and furthermore, the production cost rises due to the increased number of production processes.